The same legal principle licensed both Indian rights and their dispossession

Evidence

Vitoria also managed, however, to arrive at a contrary conclusion by relying on that same natural law. This infinitely amenable law also provided that the rights of the Indian peoples had to adjust to the expansive rights of all other people, including the Spanish, to travel, trade, “sojourn” and, in the cause of Christianity, to proselytize. There was also something of a right to enforce natural law. These rights could not be aggressively asserted unless they were resisted by the Indians. When so resisted, however, they could be asserted to the full extent of conquest and dispossession. And so they were. This process was greatly facilitated by Vitoria’s deeming the Indians to be inherently recalcitrant. Although included initially within its universal embrace, Vitoria also found the Indian to be outside the range of natural law. The details of their utter deviance was even then quite standard, ranging from the instantly egregious, such as cannibalism and sexual perversion, to more picayune affronts to European taboos of diet and dress - nudity, consuming food raw, eating reptiles, and so on. — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 223 (#exemplifies, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Natural law let Vitoria simultaneously justify and void Indian sovereignty — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 223; The same case is read by judges as either protecting rights or inventing them. — G. Alan Tarr, Judicial Process and Judicial…, 3341; Natural law theory initially recognized Indians as holding sovereign title to their lands (+4 more)

Broader Connections

• Natural law let Vitoria simultaneously justify and void Indian sovereignty #exemplifies (0.96) — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 223