Analysis Of Spanish Imperialism By Francisco De Vitoria

Francisco de Vitoria is often painted as the more logical and more fair jurist when compared to Juan López Palacios Rubios. Vitoria, however, is no bleeding heart. Rather, he evades the outright imperial rhetoric employed by Palacios Rubios and chooses instead to hide colonialism under the guise of religion. By first refuting Palacios Rubios’ claims that the pope could give Spain jurisdiction over the so-called “New World,” along with the natives’ crimes against the law of nature, Vitoria creates a better persona for himself. But immediately after his initial rebuttal of Palacios Rubios’ justification for Spanish colonialism in the New World, Vitoria gives his own justification. He lists a myriad of conditions the natives could break that would

Vitoria eases the reader in, declaring that Spaniards have the right to travel throughout the natives’ land, granted they do no harm the natives. However, this request only serves as an opening to his real point; “Spaniards may lawfully trade among the barbarians, so long as they do no harm to their homeland,” (Vitoria, 279). Vitoria cites the law of nations, which states that travellers can trade in other nations provided they are peaceful with their hosts, to back up this claim. He surmises that divine law will also uphold this principle. He even goes as far as to say, “Their princes are obliged by natural law to love the Spaniards, and therefore cannot prohibit them without due cause from furthering their own interest,” (Vitoria, 280). In his fifth unjust title, Vitoria said violation of natural law is not due cause to subjugate the natives. Here, however, he states that if the natives bar Spaniards from practicing trade in the New World, against the stipulations of natural law, the Spaniards can, “[conquer] their communities and [subject] them,” (Vitoria,

However, Vitoria has only set up these provisions for the purpose of subjecting the natives. Vitoria is using religion as a guise to set up mode of exchange B, to protect and utilize mode of exchange C, in the New World. In Kojin Karatani’s The Structure of World History he defines four different modes of exchange. Mode of exchange C is capital exchange, which encompasses the world of capitalism and commodity trade. Mode of exchange B is the state, which encompasses a plunder and redistribution relationship between a system of power and the people who are subjected to it. Vitoria understands the economic gain that can be Spain’s, if the natives can be integrated into a societal system in which they work in the mines for the Spanish in supposed return for the “precious” gift of Catholicism. He desperately wants to justify this in a way that will allow Spain alone to exploit the natives. Palacios Rubios justification that the pope gave Spain jurisdiction would allow any religious leader to declare that one country is under the jurisdiction of another. However, if Vitoria blames the natives for allowing their own subjection by violating the regulations placed upon them by Spain, Spain alone can reap the rewards of exerting control over the natives and their lands