"I implore you to recognize the Church as a lady and in the name of the Pope take the King as lord of this land and obey his mandates. If you do not... with the help of God I shall enter your land against you with force, and shall make war on you in every way I can, and I shall subject you to the yoke and obedience of the Church and of His Majesty, and I shall take your wives and children and make them slaves." — The Spanish Requerimiento, drafted by Juan López de Palacios Rubios (1513), read to Indigenous peoples by conquistadors
Which sixteenth-century critique of the Requerimiento and conquest practice gained the most influence within Spanish debates?
- A
John Calvin's commentaries on Genesis
- Bcheck_circle
Bartolomé de las Casas's denunciations of Spanish cruelties toward Indigenous peoples
- C
Niccolò Machiavelli's defense of republican Florence
- D
Thomas Hobbes's argument for absolute sovereignty
Explanation
Las Casas, especially in his "Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies" (1552) and the Valladolid debate with Sepúlveda, condemned Spanish abuses and influenced reforms like the New Laws of 1542 limiting encomienda.