Natural law granted Indians sovereign title that barred Spanish discovery claims

Evidence

Columbus claimed (Vitoria, 1934 - first published 1557). He reached this result by finding that natural law, in the form of a universalized “law of nations,” would only support title acquired by discovery where the lands discovered were deserted. This was not the case with any of the Spanish claims to the Americas. Indeed, for Vitoria the Indians already had that dominium — a combination of sovereign and proprietary title - which in natural law attached to all “men.” They were even similar to the Spanish in having families, hierarchical government, legal institutions, and something like religion. In all, the Indians had the accoutrements of natural law and were participating subjects in that law. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 222

Categorization

• DEFINE: Clarifies dominium as a combined sovereign-and-proprietary title under natural law, distinguishing it from mere occupation or discovery.
• XREF: Connects to vault CRT definitions of how European legal categories adjudicated Indigenous sovereignty; parallels the racialization of legal personhood. — connects to: Discovery vested absolute title in Europeans subject only to Indian occupancy — Supreme Court of the United States (Marshall Court, 1823), Johnson & Graham’s Lessee v. M’Intosh,…, 259
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 222