This book examines the political thought of three early modern authors, Alonso de la Veracruz (1507–84), Bartolomé de las Casas (1484–1566) and Juan Zapata y Sandoval (c.1570–1630). Debating concrete New World issues such as the wars of conquest, the encomienda (Indian tribute), Indigenous and Creole rights and the origin and limits of civic and ecclesiastic authority, these authors draw from and adapt scholastic thought and other intellectual traditions such as canon and Roman law to develop an innovative political philosophy. Francisco Quijano Velasco, a researcher at the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (National University of Mexico, UNAM) Historical Research Institute, documents how these authors discuss political concepts such as rights, freedom and sovereignty as expressed in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century political discourses. Considering the different political languages of early modern Iberia, Quijano Velasco questions the traditional, monolithic view of an absolutist Spanish monarchy.
The first chapter presents the conceptual framework of the study, following the work of intellectual history scholars such as John Pocock and Quentin Skinner of the ‘Cambridge School’, who examine the different ways that early modern culture conceived the origin and the limits of the state's authority, beyond its metaphysical foundations. In this context, the recognition of tradition as customary law and the power of cities as political entities that expressed the will of the people, both setting limits to the prince's authority, justifies the usage of terms such as constitutionalism and republicanism for this period, even though these terms have been historically associated with liberal political thought after the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.
The second chapter focuses on how these discussions on the origin and limits of the state's authority are present in the debates on the Spanish Conquest of America. Quijano Velasco provides an overview of a group of Spanish jurists and theologians, including Juan Palacios Rubios, Francisco Vitoria, Domingo de Soto, Luis de Molina and Francisco Suárez, described as the ‘Second Scholastic’, instead of the more familiar label – the ‘School of Salamanca’ (p. 86). Although many of these intellectuals were associated with the University of Salamanca, there was no institutional or official perspective, nor was it a homogeneous group.
The third chapter is dedicated to Veracruz, who studied at Salamanca and later travelled to New Spain (Mexico), where he entered the Augustinian order, taught theology at the University of Mexico and worked with Tarascan Indians. In 1554–6 he wrote De dominio infidelum et iusto bello. Veracruz affirmed that the Indians had legitimate right to their property and they had legitimate rulers. He concluded that the wars of conquest were unjust. However, he considered that Charles V's dominium of the Indies could still be just, as far as it was for the greater good, recognising Indigenous authorities, limiting the encomienda, returning the property unjustly seized and lowering taxes (pp. 154–5). In terms of political thought some of the ideas advanced were: the origin of authority was human, not divine; the prince's authority, dominium, was administrative or jurisdictional, not ownership of the people as servi (p. 142); in Speculum coniugiorum (1556), a treatise on marriage, Veracruz affirmed that the Indians had the rational capacity to express their will and consent, asserting self-determination or liberty (p. 125); in De decimis (1555–7), on tithes, he argued that the prince had to respect the community's will expressed in custom and could not impose tributes without the community's consent; and in war, he questioned the right of the Spaniards to enter any land freely – as defended by Vitoria.
The fourth chapter is dedicated to Las Casas, focused on his later texts, Principia quaedam (1551), De thesauris (1563), Twelfth Doubts (1564) and De regia potestate (1571) (I would have added the Apología). Together, they represent the bishop's most developed political thought, whose building blocks are the Aristotelian-Thomist formation provided by the Dominican order (1522), canon law from his experience as Bishop of Chiapas (1544–7) and Roman law from his exchanges with jurists and theologians in his final years in Spain (1547–66), including the famous Valladolid Junta in 1550. His political thought evolves but the aim remains the same: the defence of the Indians. This story is well known, in general terms, with an ample bibliography devoted to the work of the Bishop of Chiapas, who is often praised for his groundwork in the development of modern human rights. The contribution of this book to Las Casas scholarship is to examine with precision the political language used by the bishop, placed in the context of early modern political thought and based on some of Las Casas’ less studied texts. Drawing from Roman law, the bishop argued that the political community transferred power to the prince for jurisdictional (administrative) purposes. Individual and collective dominium (no dependence of others – in other words, freedom) is retained by the people as well as their property. This transfer of power is just only if it was freely consented by the political community and as long as it was for the common good. Thus, to be just, the Spanish Crown's political authority over the Indies had to be based on the free will of the Indians, respect of their property, the restitution of stolen goods, the immediate end of the encomienda and a restriction of new Spanish settlements (p. 207). In the end, Las Casas conceived a mixed government where the Crown's universal jurisdictional authority over the Indies respected the individual and collective rights of the Indians and their republics.
The next chapter is dedicated to Creole writer Zapata y Sandoval. Born in Mexico, he taught theology in Mexico City and later at the Augustine school in Valladolid, Spain. In 1613 he returned to New Spain as Bishop of Chiapas. His treatise De iustitia distributiva et acceptione personarum ei opposita disceptatio (1609) sought to affirm the rights of the descendants of the conquistadors in the distribution of civil and ecclesiastical posts and privileges, including encomiendas. More concretely, Zapata y Sandoval argued that the encomiendas were by right owned by the conquistadors and their descendants as the product of a pact between the conquistadors and the king, who could not take away nor limit them (p. 259). Zapata y Sandoval inherited a more precise political vocabulary from Vitoria, Soto, Molina, Suárez and others, such as potestas instead of dominium, the notion of the community as a persona ficta with political will, and the juridical notion of representation. The irony is that the political language developed to advocate for Indian rights was now co-opted to defend the rights of the Creoles, relegating the Indian from the political discussion (p. 278).
Overall this is a valuable contribution to colonial studies and political philosophy. The study stops where postcolonial studies and the New Conquest history engage post-conquest Indigenous and Creole Spanish America. Likewise, those approaches will certainly benefit from this excellent book.
