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The Valladolid debate (1550 – 1551) concerned the treatment of natives of the New World. Held in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it opposed two main attitudes towards the conquests of the New World. Dominican friar and Bishop of Chiapas Bartolomé de las Casas argued that the Amerindians were free men in the natural order and deserved the same treatment as others, according to Catholic theology. Opposing him was Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda, who insisted the Indians were natural slaves, and therefore reducing them to slavery or serfdom was in accordance with Catholic theology and natural law. Las Casas and Sepúlveda each later claimed to have won the debate, but no record supporting either claim exists, and the debate had no clear effect on the treatment of the natives.^[1]

Las Casas, from the School of Salamanca and the Humanist movement, worked for years to expose the cruel treatment of natives in the encomienda system. This work had led to the Laws of the Indies of 1542, which promised to bring the encomienda system to an end. The humanity of the natives had already been established by the papal bull Sublimus Dei of 1537. Moved by Las Casas and others, the King of Spain Charles V ordered that further aggressions against the natives should cease and called a Junta (Jury) of eminent doctors and theologians to hear both sides and to issue a ruling on the controversy. Las Casas' position found support from the monarchy and the Catholic Church, who wanted to control the power of the encomenderos, while Sepúlveda's arguments supported the interests of the colonists and landowners who benefited from the system.

Though Las Casas tried to bolster his position by recounting his experiences with the encomienda system's mistreatment of the Indians, the debate remained on largely theoretical grounds. Sepúlveda took a more secular approach, basing his arguments largely on Aristotle and the humanist tradition to say the Indians were naturally predisposed to slavery, and could be subjected to bondage or war if necessary. Las Casas objected, arguing that Artistotle's definition of the "barbarian" and the natural slave did not apply to the Indians, who were fully capable of reason and should be brought to Christianity without force or coersion. In the end, both parties declared they had won the debate, but neither received the outcome they desired. Las Casas did not see an end to Spanish wars of conquest in the New World, nor did Sepúlveda see the New Laws restricting the power of the encomienda system overturned. The debate did result in the weakening of the encomienda system, but did not substantially alter the treatment of the Indians.