Las Casas argued all humans, however barbarous, possess reason

Evidence

However, Bartolomé de Las Casas (1474–1566), the priest who made himself the champion of the Indians, protested vigorously at the brutality of the Spaniards in putting Indians to work as forced labor. Indians, he insisted, did have their own laws, customs, civilization, and religion, and were “true men” whose cannibalism was much exaggerated. “All men,” Las Casas claimed, “however barbarous and bestial, … necessarily possess the faculty of Reason” (quoted in Honour 1978, 59). The issue was formally debated before Emperor Charles X at Valladolid in 1550. — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 649

Categorization

• DEFINE: The Valladolid debate and Las Casas’s universal-reason argument anchor the historical vocabulary of colonial legitimation.