Rebellion and Slavery in Sixteenth-Century Spain: Intellectual Responses to a Moral Dilemma

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• Daniel Alleman
• Tuesday 07 November 2017, 20:30-21:00
• 3&4 Finella (near Harvey Ct).

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Alisa Molotova.

The Spanish scholastic university theologians of the sixteenth century penned extensive treatises on justice and right. They were writing at a time of major religious, social, and political transformations that fundamentally shaped their theories. The Spanish theologians participated in the debate about the justice of the Spanish conquest of the New World. In a controversy against contemporary humanists, they rejected the idea that American Indians were ‘slaves by nature’ and could therefore justly be dominated by the Spaniards. This is the (very) well-known story.

But in fact, slavery was not just an issue in the peripheries of the empire, and neither was it tied to an anthropological conception of the so-called ‘barbarians.’ In the second half of the sixteenth century, slavery became central to the scholastic discourse as an issue concerning political authority in a decidedly local setting. The Moriscos, the formerly Muslim converts of Granada, began to revolt against the Spanish authorities when the new king no longer tolerated their cultural and religious practices. But their uprising was suppressed, and a large number of Moriscos were enslaved. From the theological point of view, this constituted a problematic tension. On the one hand, nobody doubted that it was just to punish the rebels for their disobedience. But at the same time, the Spanish theologians unanimously agreed that the legal punishment of slavery had been abolished in the Christian commonwelath. It was impossible for the Catholic monarch to drive his own people into servitude. How, then, could reality and theory be reconciled? If you’re interested in the answer, come to the MCR -SCR talks on the 7 November!

This talk is part of the Caius MCR/SCR research talks series.

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• 3&4 Finella (near Harvey Ct)

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