Work record

On the American Indians (De Indis)

Francisco de Vitoria

1539 (lecture); printed 1557 · Renaissance Early Modern · Political Theory · Latin

Abstract

Written: 1539 (printed 1557)
Setting: Early sixteenth century; Salamanca (Spain)
Author: Francisco de Vitoria
Country: Spain
Language: Latin
Genre: University lecture
Form: Three parts in scholastic form
Recommended: Grades 11–12 (Abstract only; scholastic argument for advanced readers.)

Occasion. Shocked by reports from Peru, a Salamanca professor used a formal university lecture to ask whether Spain held any rightful claim over the peoples of the New World. He had written privately that news of what was done there chilled him.

Native rights. He argued that those peoples possessed genuine ownership and government before Europeans came, since such rights flow from human reason and God's image, not from faith or virtue; their towns, laws and commerce proved their rationality. Neither unbelief nor serious sin, he held, could strip a people of what was theirs.

False claims. Imperial world lordship, papal grants, discovery, refusal to convert and the natives' sins were each rejected as grounds for conquest. Lands already inhabited, he pointed out, could not be claimed by finding them.

Possible claims. Peaceful travel and commerce, missionary preaching, protection of converts and of victims of tyranny or sacrifice, and genuine consent might justify Spanish presence. He treated some of these grounds only as possibilities, to be judged by the facts.

Limits on force. Even then, violence was allowed only within the rules of just war, which he set out in a second lecture that June. Conquerors could not seize more than a just cause required.

Legacy. His reasoning shaped later thinkers on the law of nations and earned him the title of a founder of international law. Alongside the eyewitness protests of Las Casas, his lectures show Spanish Christians condemning abuses by their own government.

Key figures

Francisco de Vitoria: Dominican theologian at Salamanca
Charles V: Holy Roman Emperor and King of Spain
Thomas Aquinas: Theologian whose teaching Vitoria applies

Summary

On the American Indians (De Indis) is a public lecture, or relection, given by the Dominican theologian Francisco de Vitoria at the University of Salamanca in January 1539. It asks by what right the Spanish had taken possession of the lands and peoples of the Americas. Vitoria spoke after news of the conquest of Peru had reached Spain, and he wrote to a friend that the reports of what had been done there made his blood freeze. The lecture was printed after his death in his collected Relectiones at Lyon in 1557. Vitoria begins with the question whether the Indians, before the Spaniards came, were true masters of their lands and rulers of their own communities. He answers yes. Neither unbelief nor sin destroys a person's ownership or rule, because dominion rests on being made in the image of God and endowed with reason. The Indians had cities, marriages, magistrates, laws and trade, which show the use of reason. Therefore, he concludes, they were true owners and rulers, both in public and in private affairs. He then examines the titles commonly claimed for Spanish rule and rejects most of them. The emperor is not lord of the whole world. The pope has no temporal power over unbelievers and cannot give their lands away. Discovery gives no title, since the lands were not unowned. The Indians' refusal to accept the faith is not a just cause for war, nor are their sins against nature, nor any supposed voluntary submission made under fear. Finally Vitoria considers titles that might be legitimate: the natural right of all peoples to travel and trade peacefully, the right to preach the Gospel, the protection of converts, the defence of innocent people from tyranny and human sacrifice, and a true free choice by the people. Even these, he argues, permit force only within the strict limits of just war. In a companion lecture of June 1539, On the Law of War, he set out those limits. Vitoria's arguments, grounded in natural law and Christian theology, deeply influenced later writers on the law of nations such as Suárez and Grotius. Together with the work of Las Casas, they show that Christian scholars within Spain judged the conquest by the standard of justice.

Plot or Argument

Question
By what right did the Spanish come to rule the peoples of the Americas?
Part I: Indian dominion
Unbelief and sin do not remove ownership or rule; the Indians were true masters of their lands.
Part II: Unjust titles
The emperor, the pope, discovery, refusal of the faith, sins and forced submission give no right of conquest.
Part III: Possible just titles
Peaceful travel and trade, preaching, protection of converts and innocents, and free consent.
Limits
Any use of force must stay within the rules of just war, treated in the companion lecture On the Law of War.

Lessons

Rights grounded in God's image
Vitoria argues that the Indians' rights rest on their human nature, made in God's image with reason, not on their faith. Every person has dignity.
- Why does Vitoria say unbelief does not remove ownership?
- What does this teach about human dignity?
Related across the library
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Lesson: Universal dignity
  Universal dignity. The Declaration affirms that every human being has dignity and rights. Christians ground that dignity in creation in the image of God.
- A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, Lesson: Every person made by God
  Every person made by God. Las Casas insists that the native peoples are fully human, made by God and capable of faith. This belief underlies the idea of universal human rights.
- The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 1
  All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. The Declaration's foundational statement.
- The Life of Samuel Johnson, Lesson: Conversation as a form of truth-telling
  Conversation as a form of truth-telling. Boswell's method is to set down what Johnson actually said, with the questions that drew it out. The result shows character through talk: Johnson's retorts, his corrections of Boswell's cant, and his readiness to argue either side. Students see that how a person speaks in company can reveal convictions as surely as formal writing.
- Common Sense, Rights of Man, The Age of Reason, and The American Crisis, Lesson: Inherited power needs justification
  Inherited power needs justification. Paine refuses to treat monarchy, aristocracy, or priestly authority as self-evident. Institutions must answer reason and public good.
Questioning one's own nation
Vitoria challenged the claims of his own emperor and many theologians. Truth must be followed even when it is unwelcome.
- Which claims of Spanish rule did Vitoria reject?
- Why does it take courage to question a powerful government?
Related across the library
- The Quiet American, Lesson: Love can disguise possession
  Love can disguise possession. Both Fowler and Pyle claim to care for Phuong while seeing her through their own needs. Greene asks readers to notice how political and romantic paternalism mirror each other.
- Economics in One Lesson, Lesson: Prices as signals
  Prices as signals. Prices tell producers what to make and consumers what to economize. Fixing them by law, Hazlitt argues, distorts that information.
- Henry VI, Part 1, Lesson: A kingdom lost by its own lords
  A kingdom lost by its own lords. The French do not defeat Talbot at Bordeaux; York and Somerset do, each waiting for the other to move first. Sir William Lucy names the cause plainly in Act 4, Scene 4. The scene teaches that pride in being right can be as lethal as cowardice, and that the duty to help a comrade does not wait for the settlement of one's own quarrel.
- The Quiet American, Lesson: Innocence is not harmless
  Innocence is not harmless. Pyle's danger lies in the union of personal decency with abstract political certainty. Greene teaches that innocence backed by power can evade responsibility for the bodies it harms.
- Saint Joan, Lesson: The private conscience and the public authority
  The private conscience and the public authority. Joan obeys her voices before the Church, and her king and peers alike before her own judgment. Warwick and Cauchon see in this the coming conflicts of Protestantism and nationalism, and the play lets each side argue in its own terms.
The law among nations
Vitoria spoke of rights that all peoples share, such as travel and trade. This was a foundation of international law.
- What rights did Vitoria think all nations share?
- Should there be laws that bind all nations? Who would enforce them?
Related across the library
- The Petition of Right (1628), the Habeas Corpus Act (1679) and the English Bill of Rights (1689), Lesson: Consent to taxation
  Consent to taxation. Parliament insisted that no tax be levied without its consent. This principle became the American cry against taxation without representation.
- The Golden Bowl, Lesson: Knowledge and power
  Knowledge and power. Maggie grows from innocence to knowledge and uses it to act. James asks whether her methods are wise or manipulative.
- The Law, Lesson: When law becomes a prize
  When law becomes a prize. Bastiat explains the passion of politics by the scope of law: if law can give benefits to whoever controls it, every class will fight for control. He uses this to explain the quarrel over the suffrage in France and the two dangerous questions in the United States.
- The Road to Serfdom, Lesson: Knowledge is scattered among many people
  Knowledge is scattered among many people. No central planner can know all the local circumstances of millions of producers and consumers. Prices and competition, Hayek argues, coordinate this dispersed knowledge without anyone having to grasp the whole. This idea, developed further in his 1945 essay The Use of Knowledge in Society, underlies his doubt about central direction.
- The Rights of War and Peace (Book I), Book I, ch. I, §XIV
  But the law of nations is a more extensive right, deriving its authority from the consent of all, or at least of many nations. The definition of the law of nations as human voluntary law, distinct from both civil law and natural law.

Context

By the 1530s Spain had conquered the Caribbean, Mexico and Peru. Theologians and royal councils debated whether the conquest was just and how the native peoples should be treated.

Composition

Vitoria delivered the lecture at Salamanca in January 1539, followed by On the Law of War in June 1539. Students' notes and manuscripts preserved them until they were printed at Lyon in 1557.

Reception

The lectures fed the debates that led to the New Laws of 1542 and the Valladolid disputation of 1550–1551. Later jurists of the law of nations, including Suárez and Grotius, drew on Vitoria, and he is often called a father of international law.

Justice Law Colonialism Empire Faith / Religion War Violence

Comparisons

A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
Las Casas presents the eyewitness case against the conquest that Vitoria analyses in scholastic form.
The Rights of War and Peace (Book I)
Grotius built his law of war and peace on foundations laid by Vitoria and the School of Salamanca.
Summa Theologica
Vitoria lectured on Aquinas and reasons from his teaching on natural law.

Quotes

For Students

A reading companion for classical Christian high school students. See the student guide.

Reading Guide

Watch for

The question of Indian dominion.
The titles Vitoria rejects.
The titles he considers possibly just.
His appeal to natural law.

Key terms and names

Relection: A formal public lecture given at a Spanish university on a set topic.
Dominion: Ownership or rightful rule over property or people.
Just war: A war fought for a just cause, by proper authority and with right intention and means.
Law of nations: The law common to all peoples, the forerunner of international law.

Seminar Questions

Comprehension What question does Vitoria set out to answer?
Comprehension Why does Vitoria say the pope cannot give the Indians' lands to Spain?
Interpretation How does Vitoria use the Indians' cities, laws and marriages as evidence?
Interpretation Why does refusal of the faith not justify war, according to Vitoria?
Interpretation Are there any just reasons for one nation to intervene in another?
Interpretation Why would the defence of innocents from human sacrifice be a harder case for Vitoria?
Big Question What do all human beings share that grounds their rights?

Faith Connections

Genesis 1:26–27 (Scripture)
Human beings made in God's image, the root of Vitoria's claim that unbelievers keep their rights.
Matthew 5:45 (Scripture)
God "sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust": natural goods belong to believers and unbelievers alike.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica II-II, q. 10, a. 10 (Great Conversation)
Aquinas teaches that dominion among unbelievers is not abolished by unbelief, the principle Vitoria applies.

Logic and Rhetoric

Central argument: The native peoples were true owners and rulers; most claimed titles to conquer them are false, and any legitimate title permits force only under strict just-war limits.

Rhetorical device: scholastic disputation. Vitoria states each claimed title, weighs arguments for and against, and gives his conclusion.

Debate: Resolved: that a nation may use force to protect innocent people in another nation.

Writing Prompts

Essay: Explain Vitoria's argument about the rights of the American Indians and evaluate it.

Comparison with A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies: Compare Vitoria's scholastic argument with Las Casas's eyewitness account.

Creative Prompts

Essay
Explain why Vitoria concludes that the Indians were true owners and rulers before the Spanish arrived.
Dialogue
Write a disputation at Salamanca between Vitoria and a defender of the conquest.
Classroom
Make a chart of the titles Vitoria rejects and the ones he accepts, with his reason for each.