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Sepulveda Democrates Alter Essay

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The New World: an Introduction In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a Papal Bull granting a protectorate of the New World to Spain. The subsequent attempt to rationalize and justify administrative dominance in lands with complex indigenous cultures (Inca and Aztec) led to much debate and to attempts to reconcile European political ideas with "new world" social and economic conditions. The trans-Atlantic encounter gave impetus to the development of international law, comparative ethnology, and theories of cultural development. By 1520, "New Spain" comprised two viceroyalties, in Mexico City and Lima. Meanwhile, encomiendas or feudal fiefdoms had been established on the conquered soil by the colonizers. In 1542, the Spanish "New Laws" decreed …show more content…

These events surprised me mightily because of their grandeur and novelty and for being so unexpected; but thinking about them further, I was seized by a doubt, to wit, whether it was congruous with justice and Christian charity that the Spaniards should have made war on those innocent mortals who had caused them no harm. I wish to know, therefore, what you think about this and other similar wars which are waged without any reason or aim except for mere whim and greed. And I also want you to explain succinctly, with the clarity peculiar to your outstanding mind and subtle understanding, all the possible causes for a just war, and then to resolve the question in a few words. D.... In the first place, one must keep in mind a principle which is the basis of this and many other questions: everything which is done in the name of natural rights or laws can also be done by virtue of divine rights or evangelical laws. When Christ tells us in the Gospels not to resist the evil-doer and, if someone strikes us upon one cheek, to turn the other . . ., we should not believe that he was attempting to do away with the laws of Sepulveda: Democrates Alter B-3 nature which permit one to resist force with force within the limits of a just defense.... Those words from the Bible are not laws in the obligatory sense of the word, but rather advice and exhortation which do not belong so much to everyday life as to apostolic perfection.... 40 I wish to make it

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