Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Juan ginés de sepúlveda (1490?–1573) was the chaplain and official chronicler of Charles V and a tutor of Philip II. Democrates Secundus (1547) was written in answer to Bartolomé de Las Casas's great denunciation of Spanish atrocities in the New World, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (1542). It defended the right of the Spaniards to make war on the pagan and allegedly subhuman Native Americans; in passing, Sepúlveda derides any temptation to idealize their primitive existence. The work was condemned, and the royal license necessary for publication was denied. Sepúlveda engaged in a famous “debate” in Valladolid with Las Casas, though the antagonists never faced each other. Sepúlveda's work remained under condemnation, and at his death he was almost forgotten.
With the prudence, intelligence, magnanimity, temperance, humanity, and religion of these men [the conquistadors], now compare these less-than-men [homunculi], in whom you will scarce find any traces of humanity. They lack learning, have no use or knowledge of writing, and keep no historical records, other than a tenuous and vague memory of some events, recorded in pictographs. They have no written laws, but only certain barbarous institutions and customs. As to virtues, if you look for temperance and mildness, what can be hoped from people who were immoderate in every form of intemperance and unspeakable lust, and of whom not a few fed on human flesh?
To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.
Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.
Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.
To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.