How North America Came to Hate Individuals

Wendy McElroy
Oct. 04, 2014

The Spanish historian and Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas (1484-1566) is one of my favorite libertarian figures. He devoted most of his life to fighting the violent colonization of South America and the savage slavery it involved. Unique among European nations, and largely because of Las Casas, Spain debated the morality of conquest and slavery at the highest levels. In response to a petition co-authored by Las Casas, Pope Paul III issued the Sublimis Dei in June 1537. The papal bull prohibited enslaving Indians in the New World on the grounds that they were rational beings who should be peacefully converted and treated as equal to Spaniards. Unfortunately, moral theory an ocean away did not always trump practical policy in the colonies.

Nevertheless, Las Casas' accomplishments were remarkable. He was one of the earliest voices for universal human rights based on a shared humanity. Or, as he phrased it, "all mankind is one." Part of my fondness for Las Casas comes from an insight that occurred to me while reading a collection of his work: namely, all progress toward human freedom can be reduced to the universalization of individual rights. Every individual, by virtue of being human, possesses an identical and natural right to control his own person and property. The key word is "natural." As part of human nature, rights are both universal and inalienable; they are not dependent upon government, rulers, laws or customs.

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