Details

Standardized Title:

Aqui se contiene una disputa o controversia. Selections.

Subjects:

Sepúlveda, Juan Ginés de, 1490-1573.
Missions -- Latin America -- Early works to 1800.
Indians, Treatment of -- Latin America -- Early works to 1800.
Indians, Treatment of.
Colonies.
Administration.
Missions.
Latin America.
Spain -- Colonies -- America -- Administration -- Early works to 1800.
Spain.
America.

Form/Genre:

Codices.
Polemics.
Manuscripts, Spanish.
Manuscripts, Renaissance.

Language:

Spanish.

Biography/History:

Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish Dominican friar, historian, scholar, and advocate for the humane treatment of the indigenous peoples of New Spain. From 1493 to 1498 he received a formal education while his father and uncle participated in Columbus' second expedition to the Caribbean. After his father's return, Las Casas studied canon law at Salamanca in order to become a priest. In 1502, he received minor orders and accompanied his father to Hispaniola in the expedition of the new governor Nicolas de Ovando. Las Casas, as an overseer on his father's hacienda and a provisioner to the Spanish military, saw firsthand with horror the atrocities committed against the Taino people. In 1506, he returned to Spain where he completed his studies and was ordained into the priesthood. Upon his return to the West Indies in 1510, the fiery sermon of the Dominican friar Antonio Montesino against the brutal treatment and enslavement of the Native Americans through the encomienda system sparked Las Casas into manumitting his own slaves and giving up his provision business. Las Casas took holy orders with the Dominicans and spent the rest of his life defending natives in Spanish colonies of the New World. He wrote to expose their plight and propose reforms. Originally suggesting that Native American laborers be replaced with African slaves, Las Casas eventually stood against all forms of slavery. He successfully agitated for legal reform, such as the Laws of Burgos, which added protections for Native Americans, and the New Laws, which outlawed slavery and the encomienda system. He undertook peaceful evangelism in the modern-day state of Chiapas and attempted (albeit unsuccessfully) to establish his own colony at Cumana in modern-day Venezuela where Spaniards and Native Americans could live in peace. He became the first resident bishop of Chiapas. Against strenuous opposition from secular colonists he endeavored to enforce the New Laws from the ecclesiastical side and denied confession to anyone profiting off native labor or land. When pressures from his opponents drove him out of Chiapas, he obtained new commitments to ecclesiastical immunity from secular authorities at a convocation of bishops in Mexico City. In 1547, he returned to Spain where he became a presence at the courts of Charles I (Holy Roman Emperor Charles V) and Philip II. He died in Madrid at the Dominican convent of Nuestra Senora de Atocha at age 82 in 1566.

Summary:

The responses of Bartolomé de las Casas to Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda's twelve refutations following the junta of Valladolid. The junta was convened by Holy Roman Emperor Charles V in 1550 and 1551 to consider the justice of the wars being waged by Spain in the western hemisphere, with Sepúlveda arguing that force could be used against the Native Americans and they could be enslaved, and Las Casas arguing that the Native Americans were capable of reason and should not be coerced or enslaved. The first four leaves, containing the first two responses and the beginning of the third response, are lacking. Las Casas published both Sepúlveda's objections and his own responses in his work titled Aqui se contiene una disputa o controversia: entre el obispo don fray Bartholome de las Casas, o Casaus, obispo que fue de la ciudad Real de Chiapa que es en las Indias, parte dela nueva España: y el doctor Gínes de Sepulveda Coronista del Emperador nuestro señor ... (Seville, 1552).

Contents:

1. f.5r-5v: La tercera replica [incomplete, end only]
2. f.5v-7r: La quarta replica
3. f.7r-7v: La quinta replica
4. f.7v-9r: La sexta replica
5. f.9r-9v: La septima replica
6. f.9v-10v: La octava replica
7. f.10v-12r: La nona replica
8. f.12r-13v: La decima replica
9. f.14r-17r: La undecima replica
10. f.17r-25r: La duodecima replica.

Notes:

Title from later paper wrapper (f. ii recto).
Fragile due to ink oxidation; some early repairs; interleaved with blank early modern paper.
Collation: Paper, ii + 21 + ii; 1-2² 3¹ 4-11²; 5-8, [9], 10-25, contemporary foliation in ink, upper right recto.
Layout: Written in 42-44 long lines.
Script: Written in cursive script by Bartolomé de las Casas (signature, f. 25r)
Binding: Velvet with remains of two pairs of fabric ties and marbled endpapers; also two later paper wrappers, the first with the title of another work (De los quatro tercios, ò dos cargas) and the second with the title of this work.
Origin: Written in Spain, probably Valladolid, circa 1551 (date of the end of the Valladolid junta).

Penn Provenance:

Gift of Robert Dechert, before 1975.

Cited as:

UPenn Ms. Codex 1642.

Contributor:

Dechert, Robert, former owner.

OCLC:

883214806

Access Restriction:

Access to this item is subject to staff review.