Carey senior faculty Fellow seminar 2002-03
Professor Sabine MacCormack
1115 Flanner, 1-3437
Bartolomé de las Casas:
Texts, Historical Context, & Contemporary Resonances
(ROSP460A/560A; HIST 460M; MI 560A)
The Spanish conquest of Central and South America
generated a crisis of conscience in Spanish universities and in
Spain at large. People wanted to know: was the conquest justified,
and if not, seeing that it could not be undone, what were the
invaders to do? In this prolonged and often bitter debate, Bartolomé
de las Casas (1484-1566), Dominican friar and bishop of Chiapa
in Mexico, formulated what still are among the most moving and
intellectually incisive arguments for the equality of all human
beings. He also wrote one of the earliest comparative histories
of civilization (the Apologética Historia). The task of
the course is to understand the thought of Las Casas and his followers
in its sixteenth century context, and then to enquire into the
connections between the ideas of Las Casas and contemporary theologians
of liberation, in particular Gustavo Gutierrez.
CLASS MEETS WEDNESDAYS, 4:35-6:30 pm
1125 Flanner (Conference Room—take immediate
right off the elevators)
FALL 2002
September 11th
October 9th
November 6th
December 4th
SPRING 2003
January 22
February 19
March 19
April 16
Themes and readings:
The following outline of texts to be discussed
during the course mentions only the original sources. Please also
refer to the Bibliography, which contains publication particulars
of these sources, and also relevant secondary materials. For those
with less time to read, I cite selections from Francis Patrick
Sullivan, Indian Freedom. The Cause of Bartolomé de las
Casas 1484-1566. A Reader (Sheed and Ward, Kansas City 1995, ISBN
1-55612-717-0).
September 11th, Introduction:
Spain and America during the life time
of Bartolomé de Las Casas,1484-1566
Unification of the Spanish Kingdoms. The impact
of Europe on America, and of America on Europe: new ways of understanding
human nature and the cosmos. Why does it matter?
The Dominican Order and the Salamanca School:
Francisco de Vitoria; Domingo de Soto.
Phases in the life of Las Casas: arrives in
the Indies, 1502; Antón Montesino’s sermon, 1511;
becomes a Dominican, 1522; begins writing Historia de las Indias,
some of which he later reworked into the Apologética Historia,
1527. Writes de unico vocationis modo, c. 1533; Brevísima
relación de la destrucción de las Indias published
without licence, 1542; New Laws, beginning of Peruvian civil wars,
Las Casas bishop of Chiapa, 1543. Debate with Sepúlveda,
1550-1551; Memorial, written with Domingo de Santo Tomás,
1560; De Thesauris 1562; Doce dudas 1564.
October 9th,
Who is a Christian?
Early phases of conquest, settlement and evangelization.
Read for this meeting:
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, Historia
de las Indias Book III, chapters 1-39 (this includes the famous
sermon of Montesino, also in Indian Freedom p.138 and the Caonao
episode, ibid. p. 146.
· Also relevant are the following: Historia
I, 15-15 (ancient history criticizing the views of Oviedo); I,
39-40; II,1(on Columbus and Oviedo; the latter passag is in Indian
Freedom p. 47); II, 9-15 (Xaraguá); III, 160 (Oviedo)
· Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo,
Historia general y natural de las Indias, Book 5 (all, on issues
of culture in the New World, and about the indigenous lord Enrique,
for which see Indian Freedom p. 188); Book 19, chapters 3-7 (includes
the Cumaná episode, Indian Freedom p. 179); Book 26, chapter
1; Book 33, chapter 54
November 6th,
Law, theology and American realities
Read for this meeting:
· Francisco Vitoria, On the American
Indians; On the Law of War (these are the two Relectiones de Indis)
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, Brevísima
relación de la destrucción de las Indias (extract
in Indian Freedom p. 148; see also p. 225)
December 4th,
The nature of conversion
Read for this meeting:
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, De unico
vocationis modo omnium gentium ad veram religionem (extract in
Indian Freedom p.200)
January 22nd,
Conflicts and controversies
Read for this meeting:
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, Aqui
se contiene una disputa ... entre el obispo don fray Bartolomé
de las Casas ... y el doctor Ginés de Sepúlveda
... with an introduction by Domingo de Soto (extract in Indian
Freedom p. 289; see also p.255 on slavery)
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, In Defense
of the Indians
February 19th,
Peru
Read for this meeting:
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, De Thesauris
(selections)
· Memorial del obispo fray Bartolomé
de Las Casas y fray Domingo de Santo Tomás (Indian Freedom
p. 328; see also p. 312; p. 240 on encomienda; p. 248, on the
New Laws; p. 253 on consent; p. 358 Las Casas’ testament)
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, Tratado
de las doce dudas (extract in Indian Freedom p. 333; cf. 281 on
a parallel situation in Mexico)
March 19th,
The comparative history of cultures
Read for this meeting:
· Bartolomé de Las Casas, Apologética
historia sumaria (selections; cf. Indian Freedom p. 298)
April 16th,
Contemporary times
Read for this meeting:
· Gustavo Gutiérrez, Teologia
de la liberación
· John Womack, Jr., Rebellion in Chiapas
BIBLIOGRAPHY
1. Primary sources
(most of the texts listed below are available
in several other editions,
which may also be used)
Las Casas, Bartolomé, Historia de las
Indias ed. Agustín Millares Carlo and Lewis Hanke (Mexico
1951)
De unico vocationis modo omnium gentium ad veram
religionem ed. Paulino Castañeda Delagado and Antonio Garcí
de Moral O.P. (Madrid 1990)
Brevísima relación de la destrucción
de las Indiased. André Saint-Lu (Madrid 1987)
Aqui se contiene una disputa ... entre el obispo
don fray Bartolomé de las Casas ... y el doctor Ginés
de Sepúlveda ... in Las Casas, Tratados ed. Lewis Hanke
and others, vol. I (Mexico 1965), pp. 216-459
In Defense of the Indians, tr. Stafford Poole
(DeKalb 1992)
Opusculos, cartas y memoriales ed. Juan Pérez
de Tudela Bueso (Biblioteca de autores españoles 110, Madrid
1958) – contains the Memorial (p.465) and Doce dudas (p.478)
De thesauris ed. Angel Losada (Madrid 1992)
Apologética historia sumaria ed. Edmundo
O’Gorman (Mexico 1967)
Oviedo, Gonzalo Fernández de, Historia
general y moral de las Indias ed. Juan Pérez de Tudela
Bueso (Madrid 1959, Biblioteca
de autores españoles vols. 117-
121)
Vitoria, Francisco de, Political writings, ed.
Anthony Pagden and Jeremy Lawrence (Cambridge 1991) – contains
the two Relectiones de Indis and De iure belli in English
Relectio de Indis, edición bilingue
por L. Pereña y J.M. Pérez Prendes (Madrid 1967)
Relectio de iure belli ed. L. Pereña,
V. Abril, C. Baciero, A. García, F. Maseda (Madrid 1981)
2. Secondary sources
Bakewell, Peter A History of Latin America (Oxford
1967)
Bataillon, Marcel Estudios sobre Bartolomé
de Las Casas (Barcelona 1976)
Belda Plans, Juan La escuela de Salamanca (Madrid
2000)
Cuart Moner, Baltasar Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda,
Cronista del Emperador, in José Martínez Millán
ed., Carlos V y la quiebra del humanismo político en Europa
(1530-1558) vol. III (Madrid 2001), pp. 341-367
Friede, Juan and Benjamin Keen Bartolomé
de Las Casas in History. Toward and Understanding of the Man and
His Work (De Kalb 1971)
Gibson, Charles Spain in America (New York 1966)
Gutiérrez, Gustavo Las Casas. In Search
of the Poor of Jesus Christ (Maryknoll 1993)
Teologia de la liberación (Salamanca
1972)
Hanke, Lewis All Mankind is One. A Study of
the Disputation between Bartolomé de Las Casas and Juan
Ginés de Sepúlveda on the Religious and Intellectual
Capacity of the American Indians (DeKalb 1974)
The requerimiento and its interpreters, Revista
de Historia de America 1 (1938), pp. 25-34
Lohmann Villena, Guillermo La restitución
por conquistadores y encomenderos: un aspecto de la incidencia
lascasiana en el Perú, Anuario de Estudios Americanos 23
(Seville 1966), pp. 21-89
Pagden, Anthony The Fall of Natural Man: The
American Indian and the Origins of Comparative Ethnology (Cambridge
1982)
Dispossessing the barbarian: the language of
Spanish Thomism and the debate over the property rights of the
American Indians, in Anthony Pagden ed., The Languages of Political
Theory in Early Modern Europe (Cambridge 1987), pp. 79-98
Pérez Fernández, Isacio Bartolomé
de Las Casas en el Perú (Cusco 1988)
Pietschmann, Horst Los problemas políticos
indianos, el humanismo político y la autoridad imperial,
in José Martínez Millán ed., Carlos V y la
quiebra del humanismo político en Europa (1530-1558) vol.
IV (Madrid 2001), pp. 49-70
Ramirez, Susan Elizabeth The World Upside Down.
Cross-Cultural Contact and Conflict in Sixteenth-Century Peru
(Stanford 1996)
Rech, Bruno Las Casas und die Autoritäten
seiner Geschichtsschreibung, Jahrbuch für Geschichte von
Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas (hereafter JbLA)
16 (1979), pp. 13-51
Las Casas und die Kirchenväter, JbLA 17
(1980), pp.1-47
Las Casas und das Alte Testament, JbLA 18 (1981),
1-68)
Someda, Hidefuji Fray Bartolomé de Las
Casas y el problema de la perpetuidad de la encomienda en el Perú,
Historica 5,2 (Lima 1981), pp. 265-294
Womack, Jr., John Rebellion in Chiapas. An historical
reader (New York 1999)
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